Rule Number One

The Salt Lake Bees came to town on Thursday. They may be glad to leave tomorrow. Until last night the Bees had held opponents in their games to under three runs. In Saturday's game the real action began in the fifth inning with what should have been a simple play. It developed like this Conrad walked and then stole second while Rogowski was up. But then the catcher misjudged a throw which allowed Conrad another base. Rogowski hit a single and moved Conrad home. Knoedler walked and moved Rogowski to second. Chris Denofria, who is new to the Cats, came up and the Bees pitcher threw a wild pitch. That allowed Rogowski to move to third and Knoedler to second. Denofria then hit something to the pitcher who bobbled the ball but eventually threw it to the third baseman. Sandoval, the Bee's thirdbaseman, tried to run Rogowski down. Casey froze then ran and Sandoval rather than throwing ahead of the runner tried to do a diving tag. He missed. From our vantage point it was an easy call. Travis Buck then hit a single which allowed Knoedler to score which moved Denofria to third. Then Mellilo hit a sacrifice fly which allowed Denofria to score.

The Bee's manager came out an beefed the umpire on the Sandoval dive but he stood by his (correct) call. Sandoval forgot the first rule of fielding - always keep the ball ahead of the runner. Sandoval will wake up tomorrow wondering why he made such a bush league play.

In the sixth the Bees scored two and then we did two off the strength of a close ball down first by Carlos Gonzalez. That gave us a run and got Gonzalez to third. He eventually scored and that allowed the Cats to maintain their lead.